roy@phri.UUCP (07/14/86)
I am forming a new mailing list to discuss the uses of computers in
biological research. Mainly I want to find other people to talk to about
sequence analysis software. You know, secondary structure prediction,
homology detection, making better use of the GenBank, Dayhoff, EMBL (etc)
data bases, that sort of stuff. Anything from technical discussions about
using finite state machines to search data-bases to "does anybody have a
program to translate open reading frames on an IBM-PC?" is fair game.
I believe in the minimalist school of moderation. Other than
grossly inappropriate submissions like the quintessential "please add me to
your list" messages, I plan on just re-mailing whatever I get. I'm a bit
afraid of automatic mail-reflectors (never did trust those gol-danged
computin' machines :-), so I do plan on keeping a human in the loop.
The purpose of this posting is several-fold. First off, I want to
announce the existence of the list to people who might be interested. If
you want on the list, send me your email address.
Secondly, I'd like to hear from other people who have run mailing
lists. What advice can you give me? This is entirely open-ended; I'm sure
there is stuff I have to know to run a mailing list properly, but I don't
even know what questions to ask. I am ignorant; teach me.
Thirdly, I'd like to get the message out to people who don't see
usenet. Is there some sort of general-purpose announcement mailing list on
the arpanet where it would be appropriate to post this? If so, how do I go
about doing that? What about bitnet, csnet, etc?
Lastly, I need a name. Unless somebody can come up with some good
suggestions, I'll be forced to pick a name by myself. If that happens,
we'll probably end up with something dumb like info-biocomp. :-)
--
Roy Smith, {allegra,philabs}!phri!roy
System Administrator, Public Health Research Institute
455 First Avenue, New York, NY 10016